Improvements in camera capture technology have increased the ability for individuals to illegally reproduce film content. Illegal film copying (piracy) has resulted in substantial losses in profit to film makers and studios since the films that are produced can be illegally marketed using the advanced camera capture technology.
Once illegal copies of a title are released, there is no evidence of where the film was originally recorded. Attempts to remedy this include making small holes or marking dots into the film in a manual manner to provide an identity of the original film. However, these techniques are not useful in tracing illegal copy piracy. Further, such methods are time-consuming and inefficient, as these methods require a great deal of labor and cost. In addition, pirates are able to remove such marking digitally from the films.
Referring to FIG. 1, a schematic drawing of a typical film printing machine 10 is shown. In the printing machine 10, a film 12 is processed to add images and sound thereto. A plurality of motors 14 (labeled M1 through M7) are employed to advance the film 12 through different processes. A raw stock reel (varying in size) includes blank film. The raw stock is advanced to a picture printing head 18 and video images are copied to the raw stock by a master negative 22. Next, sound is applied to the film 12 at a sound track printing head 20.
A motor 14 (M7) is a main drive motor that drives picture and sound heads by coupling the head with a timing belt 15. Tensioning devices are not shown for simplicity. In fact, such tension arms are used to provide constant speed and steadiness during the printing process. As shown in FIG. 1, the film is not marked during printing. Instead, a separate process would be needed to place visible markings on the film, which requires making holes or marking dots into the film in a manual manner. Such a process is inefficient and not cost-effective.